Linting test



United States Patent 3,354,712 LINTING TEST John R. Abrams, Fort Lee, Leif G. Blomquist, Pompton Lakes, and Jerome Fine, Passaic, N.J., assignors to Interchemical Corporation, New York, N.Y., a corporation of Ohio N0 Drawing. Filed Dec. 16, 1965, Ser. No. 514,387

2 Claims. (Cl. 73-150) This invention relates to a process for evaluating the linting properties of a textile print paste on various textiles.

In intaglio roller printing of textile fabrics, wet color that transfers from the fabric to the non-printing areas of a following roller is scraped off by a doctor blade called the lint doctor. This blade is set against the direction of rotation of the roller, so that it acts like a plow in removing the unwanted transferred wet color. Various printing pastes which initially have good flow do not flow down the upper surface of the doctor blade, but are partly forced under the blade, thereby accumulating in the engraving and clogging it, or getting into the color box and altering the shade of the color. Such behavior is termed in the art poor linting.

It has now been found that print pastes can be tested for linting properties by running them on a printing machine and observing the change in flow characteristics after the lint doctor has been in operation for a while. It was noted that poor linting print pastes show extreme increase in consistency. It was further found that the linting properties of a print paste could be determined rapidly by a simple bench test, the advantages of which are clear.

The bench test is carried out by thoroughly mixing the textile print paste with appropriate textile fragments, pressing the excess fluid out of the fragments, separating the pressed-out fragments from the print paste, and evaluating the flow properties of the thus recovered printing paste. The time of mixing is not critical, all that is needed is thorough mixing; over-mixing is harmless but unnecessary. It will generally be found that 2 to 3 minutes will do. Owing to variations of individual technique, etc., the mixing time will vary from about 1 minute to about 5 minutes. The textile fragments used can be flock, skeins, cut fabric, chopped fabric or the like. It is necessary to use in the test the same type of fabric that is to be printed on the machine. The fabric may be composed of any conventional textile fibers or combinations of them. The fibers may be cotton, regenerated cellulose, cellulose acetate, polyester of ethylene glycol and and terephthalic acid, silk, nylon, wool, polyarcrylonitrile, copolymer of acrylonitrile, and vinyl chloride, copolymers of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate, etc.

EXAMPLE 12.5 parts by weight of a commercial oil-in-water textile print paste, which is defined in Example 1 of US.

Patented Nov. 28, 1967 Patent 3,223,663 was thoroughly mixed with 5 parts by weight of unfinished, bleached and washed all-cotton chopped fabric for 2 /2 minutes and then separation was effected by putting the batch in a piece of the same type of cotton fabric of convenient size, then twisting and squeezing by hand to remove the excess print paste. The flow properties of the paste were then compared with the original print paste by allowing both to flow down plates of glass, metal, or the like. The flow properties may be better determined in a viscometer, particularly when the differences are comparatively small.

The ratio of printing paste to textile fragments in the test is partly a matter of convenience in handling, but for the sake of uniformity, etc., it is best to keep the proportions at around 10 to 15 parts by Weight of print paste and about 5 parts by Weight of textile fragments, in fact the operations are rather inconvenient when these bounds are exceeded. Too much textile fiber in the test makes too unwieldly a mass, and too little shows less of the effect.

Numbers of these tests have been compared with runs on a printing machine. In all cases it was found that the tests predicted the behavior of the materials on the printing machine, any margin of difference having been insignificant from a practical standpoint, The type of printing pastes in these comparative tests ranged from some having poor linting properties to those having good linting properties.

While these tests have been confined to oil-in-Water printing pastes, it is believed they are also valid for waterin-oil printing pastes.

It may be noted that linting properties are sometimes more loosely called runnability in the art.

In the claims, parts are parts by weight.

What is claimed is:

1. A process for evaluating the linting properties of an oil-in-water textile print paste to be printed on a textile material consisting in (A) thoroughly mixing about ].0l5 parts of the print paste with about 5 parts of fragments of said textile material,

(B) pressing out the excess fluid from the fragments of said textile material,

(C) separating the pressed-out fragments of said textile material from the print paste, and

(D) evaluating the flow properties of the thus recovered print paste.

2. A process as described in claim 1 for evaluating the linting properties of an oil-in-water textile print paste to be printed on a textile material that contains at least a minor proportion of cotton fibers.

No references cited.

LOUIS R. PRINCE, Primary Examiner.

I. NOLTON, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A PROCESS OF EVALUATING THE LINTING PROPERTIES OF AN OIL-IN-WATER TEXTILE PRINT PASTE TO BE PRINTED ON A TEXTILE MATERIAL CONSISTING IN (A) THOROUGHLY MIXING ABOUT 10-15 PARTS OF THE PRINT PASTE WITH ABOUT 5 PARTS OF FRAGMENTS OF SAID TEXTILE MATERIAL, (B) PRESSING OUT THE EXCESS FLUID FROM THE FRAGMENTS OF SAID TEXTILE MATERIAL, (C) SEPARATING THE PRESSED-OUT FRAGMENTS OF SAID TEXTILE MATERIAL FROM THE PRINT PASTE, AND (D) EVALUATING THE FLOW PROPERTIES OF THE THUS RECOVERED PRINT PASTE. 